How do you make games/puzzles that don't make most people feel stupid?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=560222

by amichail • 17 years ago

3 7 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

If you can somehow build a game/puzzle that doesn't make most people feel stupid, then I suspect it would sell quite a lot more.

Static difficulty levels don't help, since people would feel stupid if they have to resort to the easier levels.

Dynamic difficulty levels that adjust to your play are easy to game by playing poorly intentionally and then improving your play.

Friend high score rankings can help, but even in a small group, a significant fraction may feel stupid. Also, many people may not have enough friends who want to play the same game/puzzle.

Having no goals (e.g., the Sims) may not make people feel stupid, but you then lose much of the reason people keep playing -- the challenge of achieving goals.

Any ideas?

mklurfeld• 17 years ago

One possibility is giving people a way to direct their emotions. For example, particularly hard problems could be delivered by a certain character, thereby redirecting the associations players have with the difficulty of the problem from the game itself to the character. The player would think upon seeing the character "Geez, not this jerk again."

Raphael• 17 years ago

The game needs to operate at multiple levels of understanding. Fighting games are pick-up-and-play, but there are combos for advanced players. You also learn how to effectively block and switch up your attacks. So make your basic game with simple goals but allow for extra strategies that take longer to understand.

warfangle• 17 years ago

e.g. make it easily possible to solve a puzzle in 50 moves, but more advanced players might find a solution in 5 moves. Give rankings for how few moves are used to solve the puzzle. (see: World of Goo's OCD objectives)

dc2k08• 17 years ago

This is the best flash game I have ever played. warning: very addictive. The puzzles will make you feel stupid, until of course you figure them out :) http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/bloxorz

amichail• 17 years ago

In general, I suspect that most people don't like feeling stupid, even temporarily, especially those that would take a very long time to eventually solve the more difficult puzzles.

triplefox• 17 years ago

Many modern games have taken the trend of just dumbing down the gameplay so that what the player actually has is not at all about challenge, but just an experience, with some gameplay mechanics as added-value.

The puzzle-genre version of this might be otherwise known to you as "casual gaming." Bejeweled, Peggle, etc. take almost no conscious effort to play, even though skill elements exist.

lacker• 17 years ago

Look at the "mafia" genre of social network games. In order to play them, you basically just select options from a menu. The more you play, the higher you score. The more friends you invite, the higher you score. The game is set up to reward playing the game more often, not playing the game with more skill.

I'm not sure this is the sort of game you want to make. But it definitely gets around the problem of people feeling stupid.

How do you make games/puzzles that don't make most people feel stupid?

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